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Edited by Michael A. Crew and Paul R. Kleindorfer

orldwide, postal and delivery economics has attracted considerable interest. Numerous questions have arisen, including the role of regulation, funding the Universal Service Obligation, postal reform in Europe, Asia and North America, the future of national postal operators, demand and pricing strategies, and the principles that should govern the introduction of competition. Collected here are responses to these questions in the form of 24 essays written by researchers, practitioners, and senior managers from throughout the world.

Monograph Chapter

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15. Development of competition in EU postal markets: the inﬂuence of the regulatory framework on the pattern of competition Patrick de Bas and Nick van der Lijn 1. INTRODUCTION Dietl and Waller (2002) were one of the ﬁrst to pay explicit attention to the potential business models of entrants in the postal market. In their paper, seven potential business models of entrants were identiﬁed. In the paper, a ﬁrst assessment was made of the business models that will be proﬁtable, the reaction of the incumbent to emerging competition, the likely services that will be oﬀered, and the resulting price levels of these services. This assessment is primarily based on the economics of postal service provision and disregards the inﬂuence of the regulatory framework on the viability of the business models. In this chapter, we assess to what extent the business models of entrants described by Dietl and Waller (2002) can be observed in practice. Moreover, we examine to what extent the viability of the business models, and hence the pattern of competition, is inﬂuenced by the regulatory regime. Looking forward, we assess whether it is likely that the pattern of competition in EU postal markets will converge over time. In our analysis, we focus our attention on some of the main EU postal markets (Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK). These countries have been selected because they are relative frontrunners in the liberalisation process in the EU and because there are marked di...

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